REYNOLDS - "Love Songs" CD
Ah, Reynolds. I saw Chris from Reynolds at the Party of Helicopters show in Nottingham. I hand't seen him in a thousand jahre. I think we had a big drunken hug and that was it. I reckon the hug was his way of telling me to write a good review, or he'd put out a hit on me. Yeah.
"Love Songs" is 50 minutes long. Shit me! 50 cocking minutes. I have the attention span of a fruit fly, yet here I am, sitting through 50 minutes of Reynolds well honed brand of "post rock", all lingering guitar wooziness and drones and build ups and no words. I am writing all that based on the first 2 minutes of the first song, as you normally can get a decent gist for the structure of a Reynolds record from the first couple of minutes. The wonderfully titled "Shitloads of Fuck All" sways around like Reynolds standing there in a soft breeze, just pinging their guitars a bit and tapping the drums, even throwing in some moody strings too. It's all dead nice, and will be enjoyed by folks who are enamored with things like Tristeza or Ariel M or other nice instrumental bands that lazy sods like me name check when we write reviews. I am being a tad quick on the trigger finger though, as they do have a few other feathers in their caps (?) or something. For example, second track "Yunga" kind of harks a bit back to Reynolds earlier days when they used to rock out a lot more noisily and people probably muttered words about them being influenced by all kinds of bands that I had never heard (well, they had a song that namechecked Unwound). "Yunga" (blatantly a tribute to Collective's very own Mr Luke Y) grooves dirtily and even throws in a spazz sax part. Track 4, "Like Texas (But Wet)" gets right loud, with loads of drums going boom boom boom and guitars ominously making sounds. I find it rather disconcerting. Then it all gets nice again with sexy Ida style strings and guitars. Calm after the storm and all that (wait a sec, I thought it was supposed to be before the storm, oh well). Then out of nowhere it is track 5, the herky jerky "Stopper" with it's naughty bass and portents of doom. I see dudes doing that math rock thing where they go back and forth. I could even headbang to parts of this whilst making the metal sign. Unfortunately, I would have to math headbang, which is a whole lot more difficult and liable to result in brain damage.
Well, all told. That was 50 minutes. This is a spiffing record. It is diverse, it is fun, it is any good.
Sorted, now I will not be killed.
Review by Andy Malcolm at Collctive Zine